LESLEY KAY

Though he describes himself as a man with little money and no experience, Ed Mahoney decided the first boat he built would be a big one: a Didi 38 designed by Dudley Dix. Ed spent seven years building LESLEY KAY in his front yard, all the while raising his family of four children. Dix designed her to be a fairly simple build with a hull of epoxied plywood, which Ed fastened to a backbone of Honduran mahogany. Ed used Atlantic white cedar for the interior. Always keeping his budget in mind, he reports that he was able to buy about half of the materials secondhand through places like Uncle Henry’s and Craigslist. Ed named the boat for his wife. The family plans to sail LESLEY KAY along the Maine coast.